The Environmental Protection Agency submitted a new proposal on Friday to limit emissions from power plants and curb pollution using new technology.
The EPA anticipates an onslaught of lawsuits if the proposal comes to fruition, USA Today reported. The organization announced on Friday that it wants to push capping the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from newly opened power plants. Plants fueled by coal will not meet standards outlined in the proposal unless the facilities are outfitted with pricey technology. Two such plants are currently being built - one located in Canada's Saskatchewan Province, the other, in Mississippi's Kemper County. Three more coal plants are in the works of switching over to the new technology, two in Texas, and one in Illinois.
According to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, who spoke with USA Today, citizens of the United States have a "moral obligation to the next generation" to preserve the environment. She considered the proposal a "necessary step to address a public health challenge."
During a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., McCarthy stated that the proposal will "set out a path forward" for the coal industry, and that investing in "home-grown technologies" is both feasible and worthwhile.
Members of the coal industry who are against the proposal say it's illegal to implement technology that hasn't been approved commercially.
Supporters maintain that the proposed standards will induce widespread cleanup within the industry.
"There's no demand for the technology now," but this EPA rule would certain change that, Dan Weiss of the Center for American Progress, a group that favors the changes, told USA Today. He claimed that there are a fair amount of demonstration projects that show this method, called CCS (carbon capture and sequestration,) will reap positive results.
But for partner at the Bracewell & Giuliani law firm Jeffrey Holmstead, who worked as a senior EPA officer for former President George W., Bush, that just isn't true.
"CCS has not been adequately demonstrated," Holmstead, representative for coal-fired plants, told USA Today. "It's not met the standard EPA has used for the last 40 years" that asks for fresh technology to also be affordable.
MIT's Carbon Capture and Sequestration Technologies program member Howard Herzog's in the middle.
"It's a gray area," he said. "All the components are commercial. What's not is having a business model were they all work together. If you had to do it, you could."
But it'll surely be expensive, he said. New technology is pricey, to be sure, but there also isn't a federal policy that requires it to be put in place.
